Episode82
That Squirrel Must Die We picked things up with the galaxy in an uproar as planet after planet was transdimensionally bubble-wrapped and whisked off to the Reaver Proto-Galaxy. There was a lot of debate amongst the party about our next steps. Kiwi had set a plan in motion to rescue the remaining Treewees on Ilviera, but we also wanted to acquire samples of the bubble-field snakes. Getting those samples would require entering the Gate and crossing to the other side of very 'Reaver-heavy' Ilveria. Furthermore, with Chris unavailable due to 'Family Obligations', (or Whatever), we were without Kiwi, so the options for returning home from the Reaver galaxy were frighteningly limited. Oz was the most vocally trepidatious about entering the gate since he knew the Yaw still had at least one agent on Veilos which meant he likely knew of our plan to open the gate already. Pete and Joe called him a Pussy. The debate continued while we set about our respective activities in block four. Pete used the time to build a totally-not-planet-destroying-but-slightly-less-powerful-than-end-of-the-dinosaur-age anti-tree bomb that would destroy the Ilverian gate thus preventing its consumption by Reaver-Dragons or other nefarious uses. For his part, Oz spent the block trying to locate Yaw's agent using Pete's Shadow Reaver scanner and a lot of surreptitiousness. He needed to work alone and off-the-grid since any of our communications or even individuals could be compromised which made the effort a lot harder. Unfortunately, even though he made his Operate Sensors by 25 it was not enough due to the 'surreptitiousness-penalty' (no bitterness at all Totally Bitter!). Meanwhile, Joe pointed Pete's new super-duper Trans-D Tachyon Scanner at Ilveria to learn more about the bubble phenomenon. With the extra insight gleaned, he was able to determine that the next attack would happen to the 5 or so planets between Sable and Inahten on the far side of the galaxy. Also, using his deep tech skillz he determined that a catalyst was used to initiate the field but it seemed self-sustaining once established. Interestingly, the nature of the catalyst was nanite in origin. Some kind of Reaver-Alchemical-Transdimensional-Nanite with special properties that combined tech and magic. When the Reaver nanites physically contact a field they subvert it transdimensionally. Any kind of field, not just Farenheim fields are effected. He also determined that each nanite was effectively a mystic item of its own with an indeterminate power source. The implications of this discovery are staggering based on what we know about crafting mystic items. Could it be that each nanite was individually crafted by huge numbers of alchemists over a vast period of time? We really need to get our hands on a sample to learn more of their nature and how to counter them. Kiwi spent the block out of sight working on 'squirrel bidness'. It's probably best that we don't know more than that... Near the end of the block the Ilverian debate flared up again but we ultimately decided to travel with Kiwi to Imuid for the gate opening ritual. The plan was enter with a small strike force, establish a security perimeter, rescue survivors near the gate, plant the bomb, and then retrieve some sample snakes left over from the original attack. To save some time we decided to have the strike force plant the bomb (which came back to bite us later). The plan was going great until about halfway through our troop's deployment Oz noticed something odd. When we looked through the Gate we saw a battle-scarred land with a small area of tranquility around the gate but he noticed that some of our troops were not quite 'right'. There were duplicates and other minor errors that lead him to believe we were seeing some kind of illusion. He called a halt to the deployment while we tried to pierce the illusion via mystical and technical means. Alas, the illusion was too strong to counter for a Kiwi-less party. It did not matter for long, though, since once we stopped the troop deployment the Reavers on the other side knew the jig was up and a very confident Reaver Dragon stepped through the gate in front of us! The Dragon paused to survey our forces and seemed disappointed when he didn't immediately notice us (we were inside super-cloaked Oros ready to FTL to the other side of the planet). The moment was short-lived, though, since he blasted everyone with the nastiest AOE attack yet recorded in the Anals of Bullshittery. Everyone (including those of us inside Oros) took 80 RF-bypassing HR Damage to their personal DC, with another 40 'traditional' DR added for good measure, (we assumed that this was just the Accuracy Bonus). Nobody had their Force Skins up in time. It's not clear how often he can do this but the first blast took out most of our troops and left many with grievous wounds lying on the battlefield. Around then the Gate illusion dropped and we could see that nobody had survived on Ilveria. Our entire plan to rescue survivors had just been part of a devious trap. There was nothing but battle-scarred devastation on the other side. Oh, that and an army of Reavers with two more Reaver Dragons marshaling to step through the gate. All of our troops had of course been massacred as they stepped through the Gate. Alarmingly, we could see that the totally-not-planet-destroying-Pete-bomb carrier was dead, and the bomb itself had been destroyed, which really messed with our hastily assembled combined-first-action-plan to detonate the bomb remotely. At this point, we noticed that the Reaver Dragon had magically controlled the Treewee ritual caster on our side to hold the gate open. Reluctantly, Oz called for his destruction, (hence the name of this episode), since killing him would slam the gate closed before more Reavers could step through. Next segment, in an impressive display of Epic Overkill we disrupted the ritual by spraying that poor Treewee at the atomic level all over much of the surrounding area. The gate slammed shut, but not before another 40 or so 'lesser' Reavers had made it through. Thankfully, neither of the two other Reaver Dragons made it through, though, so only one Reaver-Dragon currently stands before us. Just before we called it quits for the night (segment 4 or 5), the Reaver Dragon unleashed some kind of crazy light-based attack that revealed everything and everyone around him in exacting detail. We got the feeling that he had deep insights into everything about us thanks to the light effect which had settled on us all, (even inside Oros). That will probably come back to bite us too. The only small ray of hope was that in their Hubris the Reavers had batted the mangled corpse of the now broken bomb carrier back through the gate before we closed it. If we can do a Battlefield Engineer Combat Time Nano-Repair on it we could still set it off, igniting the trees of the Ilvaria Gate and hopefully destroying the Draco-Reaver, (ideally after we stick it with a Cleansing Prism, but that seems like it will be extremely difficult given the number of souls it just absorbed from our now immolated Anti-Reaver Strikeforce). 22 Genaric 11 Mystic for the Logger 1 Combat Back to Space Junk Log Category:Space Junk